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6 Un-American Idols: The Beyoncé of Brazil, the Gaga of Serbia

Pop music is one of America’s biggest exports: Just try to find a South Pacific archipelago immune to the influences of Madonna or a Berber village unaware of Justin Timberlake. But in 2013—when a star can be born, distributed, and marketed on a laptop—there is an increasing diversity of divas from around the world offering homegrown alternatives to white bread and apple pie. Their music might not be hitting American airwaves anytime soon, but their cultural significance can’t be denied. After all, who better personifies a nation’s zeitgeist than the girl at the top of its charts?

The front woman of 2NE1, the undisputed queens of the wildly popular Korean subgenre known as K-Pop, CL (aka Chaelin Lee) launched her solo career this summer with the single “The Baddest Female.” The lithe and spunky ballerina–meets–Fly Girl careens in and out of English and Korean, rapping and singing about gold chains, B-boys, and private planes. The accompanying video racked up around 1 million views on YouTube in less than 24 hours, but despite that success, CL vows not to Beyoncé her bandmates to the curb, citing personal exploration as the impetus for stepping out on her own. Where have we heard that one before?